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The best and worst of 2011

Welcome to the second annual Best and Worst of [Insert Year Here] for the flight training industry. The 2010 blog, which you can read here, pointed to flight training dropout rates and the erroneous detention of John and Martha King as lowlights, but we saw some bright spots, too. (Hello, Young Eagles! Looks like you’re getting a shoutout this year as well.)

What did 2011 bring? Well, we didn’t see any beloved flight training figures erroneously detained, but we did see the FAA administrator abruptly leave his job following a drunk-driving arrest in early December. However, I’m not including him in the to Best of/Worst of list. You can tell me in the Comments if you think that was an error of omission.

So here we go, in no particular order.

Worst

1. The ongoing fracas at Santa Monica airport. Short version: The city council would like to close the six flight schools in operation there, citing “potential safety hazards” to the local neighborhoods, in spite of an impressive safety record. I guess the city of Santa Monica thinks pilots are hatched out of eggs or found in the cabbage patch. And hey, Santa Monica–your airport was good enough to train Greg Brady to fly. How many other airports can make that claim?

4. The FAA publishes a change to the regulations enabling student pilots to apply for the private certificate and instrument rating concurrently, and count dual cross-country instruction flight time toward eligibility requirements for the concurrent training. This sounds like a no-brainer, and a good way to save some money in the process. It’s not for everybody–I couldn’t have pulled it off–but if you’re up to the challenge, why not?

5. EAA’s Young Eagles program makes the list for the second year in a row, this time because EAA announced at AirVenture that it would be targeting its program to get more people to continue their flight training, and possibly opening it up to older individuals (the Young Eagles cutoff is 17).

Now it’s your turn. What’d I miss, and what would you nominate?–Jill W. Tallman

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Peg Ballou

Jill,

The Babbitt removal should definitely have been included as a low light. Such a poor example to the industry!
Fatigue among air traffic controllers was a major emphasis this year
Additionally, the inflight fire and subsequent death of Ms. Franklin plus other exhibition accidents (Reno comes to mind) have damaged the aviation industry perception.

Timothy A. Short

SAFE, The Society of Aviation and Flight Educators, an organization that was formed just over two years ago, held a symposium in May that brought together many of the best and brightest in aviation education today, for the purpose of developing, recommending, and guiding implementation of reforms in aviation education. The reforms developed by the group seek to address safety concerns, student retention, and public perception of general aviation, and are aimed at stakeholders from government (FAA), manufacturing, and flight training organizations around the country. Many of the targets of the attempted reforms were in attendance or represented at the symposium, from top officials from FAA to leaders in the manufacturing industry, to leaders in education of pilots. With the follow-up protocols set up by the symposium, the work done in 3 days in Atlanta could have positive repercussions for general aviation for years to come.